Farm Animal Abuse Exposed by HBO Documentary

Pete goes Undercover to Expose Factory Livestock Abuse

I wish I had HBO, but in a way, maybe I’m glad I don’t.  Tomorrow night, Monday, March 16th at 10:00pm, HBO is airing a documentary about an animal rights activist who goes undercover to expose farm animal abuses. His name is Pete (was he the one who blew the lid off the Chino slaughterhouse??)

Anyway, in reading the promo information about the film, it gave me a wonderful bit of encouraging information. Currently 10 billion animals are raised in factory farms to provide human food. That means there is a unimaginably huge market out there for sustainable farms to go after. I guess I have found my life’s work, in helping the humane, grass-based farmers to build their market share.  I am a publicist and promoter by trade. Through consumer awareness and education, we can move consumers out of the industrial food chain, into the humane, environmentally friendly food chain. We don’t have to go vegan to combat animal abuse, but we do need to show other people how to buy local, from sustainable family farms and ranches committed to humane practices.

This movie really should have been titled Death IN a Factory Farm, because the animals depicted in this film are raised, inhumanely in factories (where they never see the light of day) as opposed to being humanely raised on farms (where they are out on the pasture). Of course, I haven’t seen the film, and maybe some of these animals are out of doors. But even if they sometimes get out of confinement, the other critical issue is how they are being fed.  Is their diet species appropriate? Are they being plied with drugs, hurt with harsh treatment? I’d love to know if this film gets into these issues–so do tell me if you are able to watch it.

And, if you have HBO, watch this show and come back to this blog and leave a review or comment on this post, so I can live vicariously through your reaction to this important documentary. I’m kind of squeamish, so maybe it is best if I read what others think.  Not sure I could stomach this myself.

To find local sources of traditional, grass-fed meats please visit Weston A. Price website, chapter leader’s page. See also, Eatwild.com.

Death on a Factory Farm

a documentary film by Tim Simon and Sarah Teale

Rated TVMA: MILD VIOLENCE, ADULT LANGUAGE, ADULT CONTENT
Running Time: 87 minutes
Genre: Documentary
More than ten billion animals are raised to wind up on American dinner plates each year. But because laws mandating humane treatment for these animals are weak and rarely enforced, animal-rights groups have turned to undercover investigators to help expose the abuse on these “factory farms.” In this follow-up to the 2006 documentary Dealing Dogs, directors Tom Simon and Sarah Teale reteam with animal-rights investigator “Pete” who goes undercover on an Ohio hog farm to explore allegations of animal cruelty. (TVMA) (AC,AL,MV)

See also the Humane Farming Association website, http://www.hfa.org

Photo Credit: HBO and Link to Interview with the Filmakers.